David Cronenberg on Robert Pattinson's pick-up lines, Richard Gere's on-screen style and writing his first novel

His room in
London's Corinthia hotel is as quiet as the hermetically sealed
limousine in which Robert Pattinson travels through New York's
riot-torn streets. David Cronenberg, the 69-year-old Canadian
director and undisputed master of "body horror", AKA the man who
taught Keira Knightley to love spanking and turned
Jeff Goldblum into a "Brundlefly", has the manner of kindly
professor. Whether discussing his new big-screen Don DeLillo
adaptation or his thoughts on the insane levels of Twilight fan adoration, he treats
every question with a detached wry amusement. To mark his new film
Cosmopolis arriving in cinemas, Cronenberg sat down
with GQ.com to talk about some very uncomfortable topics…

GQ.com: Over the years
you've appeared in London as everything from a tabloid sensation to
a red carpet celebrity. What was your earliest memory of the
city?
David Cronenberg: The city has been a constant in my life
really since the mid Sixties. I saw the Rolling Stones at the London Palladium in
1965, as well as the Unit 4 + 2 and the Moody Blues. The Stones
were fantastic - "Satisfaction" was their big hit at the time and
it was great when they started to unleash it on the fans. It was
funny being in Portugal with Rob because we had a red carpet that went
on for about a solid kilometre straight, lined by literally a
thousand girls screaming. It reminded me of the Stones in
London.

What's the secret to filming a sex
scene? Being aroused yourself is good. The idea that you can be
clinically objective is ridiculous. You're clinically
professional in the way that you work but if it's
not turning you on as a man, how is it ever going to do that to an
audience? Assuming that's the point of the scene - if the
characters are aroused and its erotic for them, then that obviously
is to be communicated to the audience and they are going to
participate. But there are sex scenes you can do that do not have
that function and that becomes quite a different thing.

Do you think Eric Packer is the most stylish character
you've ever created? Actually, I think Dr Jung in A Dangerous Method was pretty darn
stylish. There is a contemporary quality to Eric that is certainly
timely and cutting-edge in that sense. On the other hand, he's a
guy who, like a lot of the financiers that we read about now, the
"London Whale" being one of them, really want to be anonymous. They
don't want to cut a great figure in the public eye. Part of their
power as investors is anonymity and so although Eric Packer does have a bodyguard in this
movie, the bodyguard is there to protect his life, not keep the
fans away.

Following your experience with Naked
Lunch and this, do you think the next unfilmable novel you
tackle will be your own? Ha! Now that would be nice. Firstly I've got to finish
it. I've got to stop doing interviews so I've got a chance to
finish the novel! It's funny: I don't look for things that are
unfilmable, because that's not really an interesting challenge if
that's the only challenge. When I read
Cosmopolis I thought the dialogue was very cinematic.
It was something I really wanted to hear spoken - it never occurred
to me that someone might consider it not filmable. However, it's
true that many people have bought the rights to many of Don
DeLillo's novels and they've never managed to make a movie out of
any of them. So in a way, without thinking about it, I might have
done exactly that.

How is progress going on your own
novel? I'm about 130 pages into it - maybe more than halfway
through. It won't be long. Any details I can give away? Absolutely
not. First of all, just because of normal superstition - you don't
want to talk about it until it's done. The other thing is that it
might well change a lot before publication - that nirvana in the
distant future! It's interesting that, since you're talking about
it, Don's American editor Nan Graham is also my editor and she told
Don to ask me, "Where is the novel?" I said, "Tell I'm working for
her and Simon & Schuster and because of this movie, there is a
movie edition of Cosmopolis and there wouldn't have
been. Though I haven't produced my own novel, I've produced another
edition of Don's novel - that should count for something."

At one point you were in talks to direct
American Psycho. What did your time with
Bret Easton Ellis teach you about dealing with
novelists? I've worked with several novelists - including Stephen
King, William Burroughs, JG Ballard and Patrick McGrath. Don
DeLillo is my fifth in terms of movies that I've actually made.
With Bret, that was a particular moment... I learned a little bit
about Bret Easton Ellis but I don't think I
learnt anything about myself particularly. How about that?

What's the strangest gift you've been given
by fan? There was one that was a camera that was an insect. It
was a little sculpture - and it was really quite good.

You turned down Alien: Resurrection.
Are there any film franchises you would fancy becoming part
of? People enjoy a franchise because there is a rhythm to it
and a predictability that's comforting and yet there are some
surprises that are always neat. I don't have any contempt for that
kind of movie-making but as a director it would be very hard for me
to plug into the sequel of something. So many things are
established that are actually fun to establish yourself - the
leading actors, for example!

What do you consider a particularly stylish film?
I don't really think in terms of style. I do think style and
substance are one thing - for example, American Gigolo jumps to mind because
there you have a character for whom style is his substance. I still
remember the scene where he's laying out all his shirts and his
ties and matching them. I remember thinking, "God, that's great - I
never even thought of doing something like that!" I realised I was
extremely unstylish, as you can see before you in a plaid shirt. It
is Ralph Lauren, but it's still a plaid shirt.

What was the strangest thing that happened
during your five-year friendship with with William Burroughs? William certainly had his strangenesses but he was a
really interesting man. There was a real genuine and gentle
sweetness to him that was so unlike his public personna. It was
something he rarely allowed to be expressed in his writing. But I
felt it really strongly with him. That was the most striking thing
to me.

We know someone who went to see
Crash on a date and it went disastrously wrong… As it should have!

What's been your worst date? I never really dated. The thing is I've been married for
about 37 years and it's kind of a strange thing because I've never
done this tradition of dating and pick-up lines. Somebody in Berlin
said, "What's the worst pickup line you've ever heard?" I said,
"I've never given one, at least not consciously". Rob said his answer for that is "I would
look good in your clothes". I thought that was a pretty good
one.

Cosmopolis is out now.

Andy Morris

Andy Morris is the former editor of GQ.co.uk and a ten year veteran of GQ. Follow him on Twitter @iamandymorris.